Gaming & Culture —

Little sister is watching: Ars reviews Mirror’s Edge

Mirror's Edge promised to bring something new and exciting to gaming. Ars …

This is a battle that never addresses the war

Mirror's Edge is a game that wants us to feel the sense of speed and the thrill of freedom that Faith feels when she's on the job, and there are many times in the game where it's very effective. The mechanics never really get more complicated though, there are no puzzles that aren't slow, painful jumping puzzles, and there are some points in the later part of the game that are completely flat and filled with enemies, making it almost impossible to play without turning it into a shooter. This is a game that shouldn't need guns and does everything it can to minimize their impact in the levels leading up to these scenes, so why ruin it near the end? Disappointing.

Why does this look so familiar?

DICE set out to do something new and exciting, and that's a risky thing in the current marketplace. The company's courage, and EA's willingness to publish the game, are worth applauding. Mirror's Edge feels fresh and unique when you play it, and that's a rare thing these days. The concepts and ideas simply aren't enough to keep the entire game afloat, and then things are over way too quickly. I think everyone who is interested in exploring what games can do should play and beat Mirror's Edge, but I don't think anyone will need to buy it. It teaches you how to do as many things wrong as it does how to do things right.

I hate to be the guy to suggest a Sonic the Hedgehog-style departure in interstitial levels, but perhaps in the next game we could play a few levels as one of Faith's friends, who is perhaps better with firearms? Make a few strong stop-and-pop levels between Faith's running, and you can keep the interest of the gamer for much longer without the sameness or the brevity of this title. Or simply find ways to build on the running mechanic in order to broaden the experience and not make every rooftop seem like a repeat of the one before it. The use of color to see where you need to go was very well done, but things like the bullet time you could trigger to make harder jumps a little easier or to disarm enemies was underutilized and not really needed. It looked great to jump between two buildings in slow motion and looked down, but I rarely used it in the game itself.

There is a rich vein of potential in Mirror's Edge. It was simply mined too shallowly this time.

The good

Beautiful graphics, strong art style

The sense of speed and momentum is breath-taking

Complex, interesting characters

It feels like something new

The bad

It's over way too quickly

The running is merely a repetition of the same few concepts and moves

Graphics quickly begin to look the same

Loading times kill your sense of momentum

The elevators are intrusive and go against the entire feel of the game

Story needed to go deeper into the world

Some scenes seemed to force gun play on you

The Ugly

Turn off the dot in the middle of the screen under options. This is what you focus on, and it helps to keep you from getting motion-sick. Without it I was green and spinny in about thirty seconds